The impoverished Australian environment.

We look around at our vast country island, and see, for the most part, horizon to horizon, stunted trees, desiccated ground bereft of topsoil and ground-cover, and great deserts.

A few small areas support rainforest and vine forest, where rainfall is more reliable, and in the midst of a desolation of gum trees there will be the occasional small range of hills with mixed deciduous forest and tall native conifers.

Sometimes a deep cleft in a hillside or valley-bottom supports a tiny remnant of lush green ancient forest, even the Wollomi Pine, orphan of a very distant era. Why? Why these remains, in a wasteland of ragged scrub?

The obvious reason for these remnants seems to have been overlooked until recently………….they are the islands of diversity never reached by fire. Fire will seldom burn downhill, especially to deep gullies in windless valleys. These green islands may be seen hanging-on as tiny vestiges in the vast greyness of the bush. In the wet tropics and on the high mountains original vegetation survives, but now at risk during long droughts. Keep fire away, and these islands will expand to eventually re-claim all their lost territory.

FIFTY, SIXTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the island we know as Australia was a very different place. There were perhaps no humans. There were giant herbivores and carnivores. The few creatures we now know, wombats, kangaroos et cetera, had enormous relatives then. No doubt our poor koala is the last vestige of a substantial, brainy tribe with a varied, nutritious diet.

THE GIANT HERBIVORES OF THAT TIME created a mosaic landscape of forest, jungle, and grassland that supported a vast number of now-extinct creatures. Their remains have be found both as more ancient fossils and actual bones. Remains of marsupial “lions” have been found intact in lava-tubes and sink-holes, along with those of many animals non-existent now.

Climates do change, no doubt. Surely Australia has seen many phases of growth and dearth. But look to the hills, and to the tropical north: huge forests still exist, and thrive, despite droughts that desiccate the surrounding country. Those forests are the remnants of once-vast areas, and of sixty-thousand years ago, and aeons prior even to that. They have survived all the droughts then and now, and thrive yet.

PERHAPS OUR REMNANT TROPICAL AND SUB-TROPICAL FOREST AND JUNGLE ARE NOT IDENTICAL TO THOSE OF THE PAST, BUT THEY DO EXIST TODAY, to show what once was, before. Before! Before what?

BEFORE FIRE.

PICTURE THIS ISLAND CONTINENT BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF MAN. Perhaps, though it’s unlikely, there was an actual indigenous tribe in Australia, of which no record exists, prior to 60,000 years ago; however, that group had no effect on the fauna and flora. We guess humans arrived around that time, almost certainly from islands to the north, and in tiny family groups or possibly multiple vessels. The Polynesians have always been magnificent navigators. There was no single group which we later refer to as ‘indigenous’, but possibly many separate landings by canoes and dug-outs from many disparate islands, of many different peoples and languages, as in fact there are today under one flag.

These tiny groups of unrelated peoples would have settled wherever they landed, and in this huge country may have been undiscovered by other arrivals for generations. There was an unimaginable time scale available. Consider: the Americas, bereft of humans, were populated from the extreme north to the extreme south within only 11,000 years. Nevertheless, the meeting of other groups of settlers was essential to sustain a healthy birth-rate, and those isolated for long periods would have suffered from in-breeding.

Whatever the outcome, the new arrivals found a paradise of food-on-the-hoof, and readily neglected their carefully-conserved canoe-creatures; the story of all arrivals on uninhabited lands. And, as in every similar situation, the human invaders ravaged their virgin paradise.

EVERY HUMAN INVASION OF VIRGIN LAND RESULTS IN THE STRESS  AND OFTEN ERADICATION OF 90% OF THE ORIGINAL FAUNA AND FLORA.

If we didn’t know this fact at first-hand from the recent example of the settlement of the New Zealand islands and the extermination of most fauna, and the consequent death of all the creatures and flora which depended on that ecosystem, science and archaeology have revealed exactly the same outcome from numerous lands. No place is exempt; even delightful Hawaii lacks its pre-settlement plants and creatures.

Australia certainly suffered from the invasions of island peoples all those thousands of years ago; sufficient time to result in massive disruption of the original biodiversity and the staggering impoverishment of the environment.

FIRSTLY, AND WITHIN A RELATIVELY SHORT PERIOD, THE INVADING HUMANS ELIMINATED THE LARGE ANIMALS TOTALLY.  These creatures were unafraid of man, having never experienced such an enemy, and were easily killed. The few carnivores must have been intimidated by the invaders. In New Zealand the local wildlife was exterminated in a very short time. By eliminating the major grazing beasts and smaller tame animals there was a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem; raptors and carnivores succumbing as their prey disappeared.

With the major animals slaughtered, particularly the grazers, the environment underwent drastic change as whole ecosystems were completely destroyed. So, here’s a country now offering no easy, tame food, and rapidly losing its original variety of vegetation.

AT SOME STAGE, THE HUMAN POPULATION RESORTED TO THE MOST DEVASTATING HUNTING OF THE SMALL REMAINING ANIMALS, WITH A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION; FIRE.  THE MOST ANIMAL FOOD, CAPTURED WITH THE MINIMUM OF EFFORT.

For modern generations of Australians, we accepted the term ‘FIRE STICK FARMING’ with equanimity. It seemed a reasonable practice. Now the full horror of bush-burning is only too obvious. Having destroyed the majority of native creatures, perhaps thousands of genera, the remaining few succumbed to fire, along with every scrap of diversity, fauna and flora. EVEN TODAY, THE POOR EMACIATED KOALA IS NEAR TO EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.

FIRE IS AND HAS BEEN THE SCOURGE OF AUSTRALIA, ELIMINATING THE LAST OF THE FOREST AND GRASSLAND DIVERSITY, AND COMPLETING THE INITIAL SLAUGHTER OF THE ORIGINAL MEGAFAUNA.

When we see our country of endless, sterile scrub, great leafless deserts, and fragile climate, know that all this wasteland was created by man. What we are left with is the detritus of a once-magnificent island paradise. Humans have created these wastelands in many parts of the planet; we must finally be aware of the desolation we see around us and ban all romance from the hideous eucalypt weeds which now fester in every handful of sand.

THE EXISTENCE OF THE NORTHERN RAINFORESTS AND THE MOUNTAIN SUB-TROPICAL FORESTS MEANS ALL IS NOT LOST, PROVIDED FIRE CAN BE PERMANENTLY ELIMINATED. THE EXTINCT FAUNA IS GONE FOREVER, BUT OUR FEW REMAINING INDIGENOUS CREATURES COULD BE SAVED.

However, the burning continues. The tree-weed species, the fire-loving weeds continue to thrive, the patches of ancient rain-forest shrink with each conflagration to this day, despite having survived human pyromania for aeons. We see graziers and farmers castigated for clearing the bush to open the land for cattle and crops, but look at the bigger picture. What farmers are bulldozing is not virgin original diverse forest species, but the endemic weeds remaining after aeons of ‘fire-stick farming‘. We hate to see this massive clearance, but in reality the real clearance was committed thousands of years ago, and repeated time after time. What we are left with is the worst possible species and the consequent nutrient-deprived land: a sterile waste-land. Native grasses at least are an improvement, should they survive grazing by introduced cattle.

All over our planet, ecosystems have been altered for the worse by humans, but Australia alone has suffered, and is suffering from a double scourge. The first was the extermination of the original grazing fauna: the systematic killing of those huge creatures that created and fertilised the clearings of dense jungle, thereby maintaining a diverse landscape inhabited by thousands of animal species.               The second was the introduction of fire on a huge scale, and repeated constantly; fire after fire, for unimaginable generations. Small groups of humans, setting fires downwind; mass destruction of unstoppable conflagration. The minimum effort, the maximum effect: picking-up the charred corpses for further cooking. And the waste! The horrendous waste. Fire-stick farming?  How many fires, over how many generations, before nothing is left but a wasteland.

THIS IS WHAT WE SEE TODAY, OVER VAST TRACTS OF AUSTRALIA: A WASTELAND. Not the romantic bush of Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson. We now know the ancient history of the creation of our bleak landscape, from lush forest to sterile scrub.

Reclaiming this sterile land is very difficult. Easy to destroy, almost impossible to recreate. Quick results take an enormous effort and cost. Time, and generations of human endeavour, and the permanent eradication of fire, will regenerate the magnificent rain-forest; perhaps even alter the local climate for the better. Start with the nodes of extant rich diversity on hilltops and in gullies, and allow them to expand over the charred waste. Easy to say, and easy to do, if fire was easy to keep at bay.

The awful recent fires, the droughts, the Corona virus and its resulting economic stagnation, all these depressing events push landscaping far to the background of endeavour. If we cannot even keep fire out of our back yards, how will it ever be possible to re-claim our wonderful forest from the fire-weed species? There seems to be no solution, either now or in the future.  But there is one important and surely obvious step that can be taken, which will both safeguard lives and property, and that is to clear our yards and suburbs of the eucalypts and wattles and fire-prone species. This CAN and must be done. Formulate lists of fire-proof rainforest species for re-planting and set plant nurseries to work. This CAN be done. Start at home, in the outlying suburbs, in the rural suburbs: clearing, planting, establishing wide fire-breaks. This CAN be done to keep the horrific wild-fires at bay from our living space. How much more can be safeguarded is a plan for the more secure times in the future. Local councils responsible for opening and maintaining fire-breaks as a priority, and here is the point: the wild-fires that leap from scrub to scrub will have little chance of establishing in a well maintained rain forest. Not no chance, but a definite resistance. It can be done.